The Weather Channel is in a contract dispute with DirecTV that underlines just how vulnerable some cable TV channels are to mobile apps that provide similar need-to-know content.

DirecTV wants Weather Channel to take a 20% cut in the fees it pays to carry Weather Channel, in part because Weather Channel's audience has fallen 19% to 214,000 since 2011, according to Nielsen. DTV has blacked out the channel since Monday night.

What's happening, obviously, is that people are changing their habits: They're checking the weather on their phones, and not the TV. It's hard to see Weather Channel reversing that trend, and indeed the station has changed much of its formatting from a 24/7 news cycle with anchors and correspondents to more drama-documentaries, such as "Hawaii Air Rescue."

The channel still gets viewer spikes during big storms, the WSJ noted:

David Kenny, chief executive of the channel's parent, Weather Co., disagrees [with DTV's demand]. "At the time of severe weather, TV is still where people go," he says. DirecTV's request for a "huge" fee reduction "didn't make sense, and we couldn't be the same service" if it was implemented, he added.